


The Meteor

by archaicGambit



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, F/M, Incest, Lots of Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-27 13:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archaicGambit/pseuds/archaicGambit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tedious three year long trip from the perspective of Rose Lalonde.<br/>Long periods of dulldrum are punctuated by heightened drama, often strangely coinciding with John's birthday.<br/>Rose can't seem to shake old feelings away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Year 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this fic because there's a lot of 'Makeouts on the Meteor' fics for this ship but they're usually more shallow makeouts than character development and they're also often exclusively from Dave's perspective so I thought I'd even things out.  
> This is my first post on AO3, which is pretty cool.
> 
> I think the song 'Another Day' By paplemousse goes pretty well with this.

She swore they used to be good together, that she liked the person she became around him, and she recalled enjoying his company. Their first conversation, a random happenstance, had left her pleasantly surprised. There was finally someone who could keep up with her, who not only seemed to be able to play her game of wit, but enjoyed it, as she did.

And maybe she did come to cherish the red text, and his rejection of capitalization and punctuation didn’t seem to be because of lack of intellect, but rather that his words poured out of him, and these trivialities would merely serve to get in the way of whatever subtle rhythm he had devised (he was a lazy teenage boy, but he was also an artist). Their verbal sparring had been amusing, and she thought it had been for him as well. They had been _good_ together.

When she woke up on Derse, and saw him for the first time, they danced.  She was awkward at first, but when she found the nervousness was shared, she was able to let loose, and she danced without caring how stupid she looked to the music he had made, possibly for her, most likely for his own enjoyment. For him, she could let down her façade, slip silly words from the common vernacular into her loquacious sentences. The next time, she brought her violin. From behind his shades, she could feel his scorn for the classical instrument, but silently, she nodded at his remix stand, and as she began to play, hesitant improvisation, he formed a melody around her. For the first time, she saw him smile, an almost genuine curve of the mouth.

They made music together.

They had been brilliant together.

That had been short lived once they arrived on the meteor.

He was already awkward in face-to-face conversation. Admittedly, she was as well, she had less time to compose her thoughts, to muse over what she wanted to say, to make the perfect jest. But it was worse, now that they had a certain piece of ectobiological information that barred them from their previous banter.

The first month was used for alchemizing, pooling the resources of the trolls and whatever they had left in their capatalouge decks. They made beds using a mix of various chairs, scalemates, knitting, and a table. The trolls were all intrigued by the sleeping habits of humans- sleeping during the night in stretched-out cushions. How bizarre of them. She found herself equally intrigued by the recuperacoon.

Terezi said she’d like to try out the ‘HUM4N B3DS,’ if Dave didn’t mind sharing.

Immediately, She felt her eyes flicker to glean his reaction. She noticed Karkat was doing the same thing, perhaps with equal desperation that he would turn her down, and he didn’t even know the implications it had in human culture.

“If you wanna sleep with me, tz, I’m totally up for it.”

He didn’t skip a beat. What a prick.

The trolls seemed confused for a moment, but the implications crossed over cultural barriers.

Inside her head, Rose strangled her ecto-brother.

            Once they settled in, she decided it would be best to ignore him, to adjust herself to her new role as his sister. She found herself pitying Jocasta. Surely, in a world where society no longer existed, where, even if she procreated with John (no way in hell that was happening) and he with Jade, those children would be of blood relation, it would be inconsequential.

It wasn’t.

 She found, within a proper, genuine week of his company that he mumbled frequently, his Texan twang creeping through when his words were only for himself, and she reminded herself that she was no longer permitted to find this attractive. He had declared himself the pinnacle of off limits, the zenith, the peak of a very tall mountain of things she should not touch and she warned him of the phallic imagery.

\----

It was only five weeks in when they landed in their first dream bubble.

There was a dead Dave. Dead Daves were common, but this seemed to be the first one.

And he had actually been happy to see her.

“Nice geddup, Lalonde.” He was slumped against the dream-walls of the scaffolding in LOHAC, in stupid black skinny jeans and the shirt with a  pixilated broken record, red sleves pushed up his arms.

It seemed as though all their interests had been built into the symbolism of their pre-determined lives. A broken record, as though he had known about the scratch, that it would exist on his land. Skaia had known. Skaia had known everything and refused to divulge anything until it was extremely frustrating.

The alphaDave had traded ‘Lalonde’ for ‘sis’ the instant they landed on the meteor.

It was nice to be called Lalonde. Their outdated last-name only policy was part of the game. She smiled.

“So, uh, this is like, our first face-to-face meeting for me. And I get that I’m dead. There’s no need for notebook romcom shit or like that one movie with the kid who can talk to ghosts. What’s that movie goddamn it I’m losing my grip on pop culture being dead is shit o-m-g.” He ran a hand through his hair.

Her heart wrenched a little, “It’s the sixth sense. The movie you were referring to.”

“Pft. Yeah. I totally knew that.”

“I’m sure you did.”

“Don’t patronize me, Lalonde. You’re ruining my afterlife. I mean, it mainly consists of slipping into dreams and trying to chill with these freak alien people, so there ain’t- _isn’t_ -much to ruin”-

She couldn’t keep herself from wincing. “It’s alright, Dave.”

“Then stop treating me differently ‘cuz I’m dead. Shit’s rude Lalonde. I can’t have you gettin’ all sympathetic and gushy now. You’re weirding me out. You’re supposed to be magnifying the creepiness of the stupid fucking puppets in my house through pretentious purple text .” He mumbled, the faintest traces of irritation coming through the way he shoved his hands into his pockets.

“I always thought they were humorous.” She smiled wanly.

The corner of his mouth twitched. “You didn’t have them falling from the fucking ceiling and jumping out of you when you innocently open the fridge for aj. Like is it too much to ask to not be shoved up against a puppet ass every single moment of my pathetic little life.”

“If it’s any consolation, you’ve had several puppet-rump free weeks.”

“Oh. So there’s a me who still alive then? Awesome.”

“He should be around here, somewhere, if you wished to know the events that proceeded after your demise from your own perspective.”

“Nah, I don’t really want to meet him. I guess knowing you guys made it is fine. Besides, Jade’s told me most of what happened.”

“Jade?”

“Yeah, she was here but then she disappeared.”

“Her dreamself merged with her regular body when she reached godtier.”

“Hey, Rose?” The question seemed almost expectant.

“Yes?”

“’S nice to meet you.” He stepped forward.

She woke up.

\--

Two months in, they had all finally settled into a routine. Trolls were nocturnal creatures generally, however, there was a set ‘awake hours’ and ‘sleep hours,’ based off the human (Gregorian) calendar as it more adequately measured the amount of time it would take to get to the new Session.

Mornings were used for chores. They traded off on who made food, although Karkat seemed to particularly enjoy this task. Meals were cooked using alchemized tools, food leftover from their capatchalog decks, and the surprising amount of vegetation left around the meteor. Many of these were flowering plants, there were a surprising amount of roses, that she swore Dave was about to make a joke about eating but thought better of.

Their most common meal was grubsauce on toast. Salads were also easy to make. Often, when it came to food, they didn’t feel very inventive- the attempts at melding human and troll cuisine were adventurous enough for them. At the very least, they had a nearly infinite supply of grist if they made something truly abominable.

Terezi was immediately placed away from kitchen duty. Gamzee had a free pass from the chore schedule unless accompanied by Karkat. The chore chart was of course, created and mandated by Rose Lalonde herself. With little else to do, she’d become obsessed with planning, not only future aspects of the game but making sure all things on the meteor went smoothly.

The only person to protest this was of course, Dave, who didn’t believe in schedules or actually doing things such as picking up after himself.

It was just one more thing on the long lists of conflicts between them, and Rose had given up trying to amend them, for now.

The first day Dave had been scheduled to alchemize the products of their breakfast, to be turned into an actual meal by Rose, he didn’t show up. Rose waited in the kitchen-lab for half an hour, and then went to check the actual lab, where she found a softly glowing troll instead of a gangly boy in shades.

“Hi.” Rose smiled. “You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s no trouble.” She was very soft spoken, despite how verbose she often was. Like Dave, she often mumbled. Rose wondered if she had a thing for it. “I simply noticed that you hadn’t been given the materials you required. I thought I’d assist you.”

Rose smiled, and the smile Kanaya gave in return was strange and beautiful and made her heart feel a little different.

Kanaya soon took Dave’s place as an alchemizer permanently. During these fifteen minutes, it gave them time to chat pleasantly and flirt elusively.

It was nice. Lukewarm. No drama, despite their petulant beginnings and miscommunication through a very convoluted timeline.

Kanaya was nice. She wondered why she didn’t feel more around her.

\---

Eight months in, she saw her mother, in another dream bubble.

Her mother, or at least, the alternate teenage version of her mother, was asleep, floating lazily through the sky in derse uniform. She couldn’t help but stare. It was her mother, but young and alive. She wasn’t sure what to feel- there was so much left unsaid between them, but this wasn’t her. It was a different iteration entirely. Her inner turmoil was cut short by an elbow to the ribs and a murmured question.

“Hey who was that choice babe in the pajamas?”

Rose’s mouth remained a still line, although she felt blood rush into her cheeks, a mix of anger and embarrassment. He really was an idiot, really, not to assume at this point that he was related to anyone blonde, and it felt as though the line was set out specifically to torment her. How could he not realize that? Was it a way of saying she wasn’t attractive?

She decided to ignore him.

“Terezi? Yes, I’m coming.”

It might’ve been obvious that Terezi hadn’t called her, but she noticed him shrug and turn to watch the shifting scenes of the dream bubble.

\--

They weren’t sure how to do holidays. One day, Dave informed Rose that it was- would have been- thanksgiving, and asked her what she wanted for her birthday. She shrugged, and returned to her notes.

“I don’t require much ceremony for the marking of my 14th year. We can still celebrate your birthday, if you want.”

“Come on, Rose. There is no way I’m not at least giving you a birthday present I can tell when you’re being passive aggressive. And that was passive aggressive outta every orfice.”

“I’m really not.”

“So whaddya want? Wizard porn? Chocolate cake?”

She looked back up, lips pursed and eyebrows raised.

“Right.” He smiled with one corner of his mouth. _Damn._  “I’m gonna get working on your Merlin/Dumbeldore smut.”

She closed her notes as he left, and decided that, despite the fact that things weren’t exactly great between them, it was the least she could do to give her brother a birthday present. The question was _what._ They had limited resources, and were generally bored out of their minds already. Her primary talents, knitting and creative writing wouldn’t really do anything for him.

She had informed Terezi, but none of the other trolls it would be his birthday. Their customs for wriggling days were different regardless, but she was eager to participate in the human celebration. Terezi insisted on making the banner, in bright gaudy colours they both knew he would appreciate, and she found a template with Comic Sans. Terezi ignored this, including her full quirk in ‘H4PPY B1RTHD4Y.’ The sign looked terrible in the most endearing way possible.

Rose tried her hand at making pizza. Alchemizing base things was a reverse of the process, so getting raw ingredients was nigh impossible.  She did however, manage to create a very flat bread that wasn’t especially soft or tasteful, but it was somewhat like pizza crust.

She managed to create a tomato sauce from a few smuggled cans from the simply named Can Town, and they had cheese. A troll meat she didn’t really ask about substituted for pepperoni.  The pizza ‘crust’ was lined with birthday candles, as she had no ingredients with which to make a cake.

She didn’t know what else to give him. Cards were for when they lived across the states, and she wouldn’t be able to see him read it. She couldn’t exactly come up with anything besides the pizza, but she realized he wouldn’t have anything to open. She wondered if that mattered to him. Bro’s method of raising him had apparently been eccentric.

The Seers waited together, beginning with polite conversation that trickled into a silence that they both preferred. After awhile, Terezi spoke up.

“you know- it’d be nice if we had something to drink other than fago, tab and water. You’re the best with the alchemeter- do you think you could work that?” Terezi had an interesting slurr in her voice that Rose wasn’t sure corresponded with her typing quirk. However, Rose was sure Terezi spoke louder than was entirely necessary at all times.

Rose thought for a few moments, and decided it was a marvelous idea. “Sure. I would appreciate the change in beverages as well. Makara hogs all of his vile soft drinks anyways, when he is actually seen.”

Terezi nodded knowingly, although she seemed a little at unease with the mention of the juggalo. Rose did not question this, Kanaya and Karkat had relayed the events that occurred while she and Dave were travelling to the Green Sun. Kanaya had often spoken of her frustrations about him, and Rose wasn’t sure if it was blackrom hate or just hate. She didn’t care to ask, as her understanding of the quadrants wasn’t exactly thorough.

Just then, Dave came through the door, face split into a grin. He looked up at their banner, then down at the seers.

“Well, if it ain’t my two favourite people- omg is that pizza?”

“It’s an attempt. You don’t have to eat it.”

“Nah, It’s you guys who aren’t going to be eating it because this baby is mine I am the birthday boy. It is me.” He sat down in the chair across from Rose.

“Happy 14th Birthday, Dave.”

“This is so rad I’m gonna blow out my candles I got a fucking pizza cake. Thanks, Rose.”

He leaned over her creation, the light of the candles reflecting off his glasses and making it impossible to see his eyes.

They ate the surprisingly decent pizza, and then the Seers let Dave rap at them for a surprisingly long time- the boy had endurance, and they played a few simple games on Terezi’s husktop.

Dave seemed content.

\--

The next day, her 14th birthday, passed without remark. She made herself a salad for lunch.  They all ate together (with the exception of Gamzee), but she passive-aggressively refused to mention her birthday. At one point, Dave cleared his throat as though he was going to rap. It was a distinctive cough, when he started.

She supposed, in his excitement, he had forgotten. Her mother did the same thing. It was fine, really. She hadn’t expected much from someone as absent minded as him.

It was late in the ‘evening’ she was reading a prospitian novel for research on the couch, her head rested against the armrest and feet resting against the opposite one. Propsitians were terrible at writing, but the information was important. She squinted at the tiny font, and nuzzled into her traffic-cone orange seer hood when she felt a draft.

‘We fear the nobles will never come.’ This had been scattered across the last few pages, repeated over and over.

She set the book down on the floor, and noticed a figure clad in red in the doorway.

“You can come in,” She said quietly.

He was holding two packages, one significantly smaller than the other. He approached her in a businesslike manner, with an actual attempt at posture and a very stiff pokerface. She sat up properly on the couch to allow him to sit next to her.

“So uh, actually I was gonna be this big badass hero and get you your violin, but it turns out that imagining something up in a dream bubble and trying to carry it out doesn’t work. The object has to, like physically exist within the bubble so maybe your violin’s back on LOLAR and you’ll get it in 2 years… so I uh, made you some stuff I guess.”

He shoved the shoddily wrapped presents into her lap unceremoniously, then crossed his arms and leaned back into the couch in a lame attempt to look cool and aloof.

She looked at him.

“The point of having presents is unwrapping them, Rose. It doesn’t matter if they’re shit, but unwrapping things is awesome.” He drawled. She wondered if he was trying to make her guilty for not actually getting him _present_ presents. “I guess you could do the big one first.”

She unwrapped two large tomes, with purple and gold spines. She opened the first one, and found all the pages were blank.

“I figured since you were doing all that important planning shit that it’d be kinda helpful idk its lame.”

“It’s great, Dave. Thank you.” She hugged him loosely, awkwardly, then quickly turned back to the remaining present in her lap.

She unwrapped a thin golden chain, and two tiny earrings with the light symbol.

“Oh.” She gasped, taken aback. “Dave this is, wow.” She hadn’t expected anything from him, let alone _jewelry_ , let alone something simple and elegant that she’d actually liked.

It didn’t feel like a brother-sister present. For a second, she felt the tiniest surge of hope. She kissed his cheek, and his face heated to vermillon.

“Happy Birthday, Sis.”

Sis. _Right._ Things weren’t going to change.


	2. Year 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things between the Derse dreamers become more strained as time drags on. Rose isn't sure how much she can take.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so. This chapter mainly revolves around the winking scene, because I view this as an important part of their relationship's arc.  
> I ripped some dialogue from the canon conversation, because it would be weird to re-write dialogue for them there.  
> However, the important thing is getting into Rose's head for me, and just hope it doesn't seem like cheating to you.

It was John’s birthday, he said. It’d been a year since they’d been on the meteor. A year which she had spent, at least from her perspective, somewhat productively. She missed her private school. She missed always having something to do, and wondered if she’d be at all intellectually stunted by never having past an 8th grade education, even though she’d started some high school classes (Algebra 1 and biology), it was somewhere she’d never attend.

She’d never go to university. She’d never be a novelist or a psychoanalyst or visit Europe.

There were lots of people she'd never meet, and once again it struck her that almost everyone she knew was dead. She mourned for them passively, then felt guilty for not mourining for them more. She could only mourn the tragedgy of it, she didn't know each of them well enough to remember them properly. She tried to summon the faces of the girls she'd eaten lunch with in middle school, but found nothing.

She then realized she could barely remember what her mother looked like.

She missed her mother doing chores ironically, which compelled Rose herself to do them passive aggressively.  She missed the wizard statues. She missed her mother being drunk on the couch. 

Scratch that, she just missed her mother.

A lot.

\--

Rose and Kanaya had been vaguely hanging out. They’d plugged Rose’s ipod into a phonograph, and were listening quietly to a mix of classical music while Rose researched and Kanaya read one of her rainbow drinker books. Every so often one of them would look at each other, catch an expectant glance.

Rose wondered if she really liked Kanaya, or if Kanaya genuinely liked her, or perhaps they were simply settling for each other in lieu of their limited options.

Dave appeared on a transportalizer. He greeted her with a mumbled ‘Hey’ and a slight nod of the head. He was taller these days, as though someone had stretched him ever so slightly, so that not only limbs but his face was longer. Or perhaps it was just narrower, as he was loosing his childhood fat.

“’Sup.” The word felt wrong on her tongue. It was odd to use his vernacular in person. She turned back to her work, tension building slightly inside her because she really did not want to be alone in a room with exclusively Dave and Kanaya.

“Have you seen Terezi?” He asked, properly articulating and speaking above minimal volume, making it evident this was something that actually mattered.

She shook her head, and asked why.

“We were gonna do a thing.” He stuck his hands in his pockets as though he was trying to be casual about it.

 _A thing. Oh god they’re dating aren’t they? He’s asked her out he actually did it. Fuck. Okay. It doesn’t matter you expected this they’ve been hanging out the most since we came it makes sense , Rose. It makes sense it’s good you have to stop being bothered by it. It's perfectly normal he can date Terezi if he fucking wants to date Terezi. For heaven's sake he hasn't even actually said if they're dating they could just be hanging out._ At that moment, she wanted to fly off the meteor and throw herself into the void.

“A thing?” She replied dryly, not turning to look at him, to admit how much the words ate her up.

“Yeah a thing.”

“I see.” She replied with dryness once more, albeit a soft undertone of ‘I know what you’re doing.’

“Shut up.” He mumbled, and turned to Kanaya, “What about you have you seen her?”

They spoke for a while. Rose tried desperately not to listen.

_Oh god he’s asking her if she’s black for Gamzee._

“I try to stay out of troll interpersonal politics.” She intervened in an attempt to salvage the situation.

He then properly asked Kanaya if she was black for Gamzee. Rose slapped him and shushed him. Kanaya was ‘Cool About It,’ but she seemed irritated.

“So what are you doing?” He asked with little actual interest.

“Research.” She replied concisely. They went on with strained conversation for awhile, in which they bickered about knowing the future and ‘Can Town.’ And then he said he wasn’t even listening to her. He was antagonizing her on purpose. She was going to throw him through the wall.

He got up to make a cup of coffee, mumbling to himself in a half-drawl.

“Are you talking to us?” She asked eventually, a little exasperated.

 He took out his coffee, seeming almost as irritated as her, but eventually sat down to listen to her. She lectured him on the nature of sessions, something she’d discovered recently, and she was kind of excited. He seemed bored, and she didn’t doubt his eyes were closed behind his glasses.

She told him about how their session would ‘fertilize’ the new void session and he actually seemed somewhat interested. She was simply thankful they weren’t arguing.  
He asked about the meteors, excited at the prospect of an undamaged earth continuing its culture, living people and no apocalypse.

“The baby meteors still came though, Right?” He looked over the diagrams of Skaia in her book.

She bit her lip, “Yes. But they weren't flung through portals in their own session, nor will they be created there.  They were created in our session, and sent back through our portals. Just like us.”

She explained the scratch as best she could to him, how it switched the arrivals of the players. Dave seemed to understand, but he was worried about a certain topic she was dancing around.

“So, uh, in this alt universe group of us and them… which ones are the players?”

“I’ll give you a hint.” She said quietly. “It isn’t us.”

He was very obviously unnerved.

“Man. At least I’m used to dealing with alt daves.” He crossed his arms, mumbling furiously, his face reddening slightly as his mind went through the possible implications. “I don’t even know what to think about….”

“What?” she half-joked. She hadn’t wanted to fluster him about the information, merely share what she’d found, “Meeting a deceased figure of authority as a peer?”

“Let’s not even talk about it okay?” He raised his arms in a sign of surrender, “Can’t we just like delay the meteor or something. Fight jack for a little while?”

She knew things between Dave and his brother had been testy at best, and she had often wondered if the extent to which Bro neglected him was enough to be child abuse, but she had actually thought Dave would be excited to reunite with his long lost brother, as an actual brother this time.

“I honestly thought you would find the idea exciting.” She sighed.

He mumbled about puppets and how her mother was a significantly better parent than Bro, although she was drunk half the time and working the other half.

“Anecdotes like that make me want to meet him personally.” She offered, trying to sound encouraging.

“Fine you be on bro duty then I’ll be the ambassador to your mom.”

Rose winced. Dave frowned when he realized what he’d said.

“And no that actually wasn’t meant to be the sick burn it sounded like.”

Rose rolled her eyes, “She’s your mother too, you know.”

He mumbled off about bandwagons and acrobats and she didn’t really listen because she was frustrated with him.

“You do realize we’ve seen her already, right?”

“What?” he quirked a brow behind his shades. “When?”

“Months ago.” She tried not to sound irritated about the whole experience, although it still upset her and how could he have been so stupid? “In a dream bubble. She was floating along in derse pjamas.”

“Wait, that was her?”

Rose nodded.

“uh huh…”

“You’re wondering why I didn’t tell you?” There was bitterness embedded in her voice highlighting the snark. “You’re _specifically_ wondering why I wasn’t forthcoming with an answer to your question at the time, ‘who was that choice babe in the pajamas?’” She smiled cruelly. It’d been eating at her for so long, and it was time for some passive-aggressive revenge.

“God fucking damnit.” He growled.

“You don’t find it nostalgic at all?” She wiggled her eyebrows, keen to get his goat. “Retracing our Freudian semi-blunders in conversations past?” While the question was present in jest, it had a underlying question that she desperately wanted an answer to- had their pre-game conversations actually meant anything to him?

“No what a load of _shit_.” Dave's voice cracked. His volume was at normal-speaking tone, the Dave version of yelling and he actually sounded angry that she’d brought it up. He said the word shit through a clenched jaw, as though he was holding something back and she so desperately wanted him to not be saying what he did at face value. “Stuff said between you and me before we knew we were related. We both know that was a lot of horseplay bullfuckery between like- smartass 10 year olds or… _whatever_ … you can’t seriously have taken any of that _seriously._ ”

She didn’t know how to respond. She couldn’t say anything, and she couldn’t admit that she was as flustered as he was about the whole thing. And so what if she’d taken some of it seriously? They’d started talking at twelve, and maybe she’d been a little susceptible. As she’d been generally regarded as a freak/witch/wannabe goth/really irritating know it all, maybe she had appreciated his intentions, however laced with irony they might’ve been. She was twelve and she’d liked him. Was that so horrible?

She winked.

“Ugh dont ever do that. all these fuckin _momtraps_ and _sistertraps_.” He ran a hand through his hair, “What a joke i hope skaia gets to have a good laugh over shit like this- wait i _forgot_. Skaia doesn’t laugh it just "sees" and "knows" its like a huge blue perv thats mad jazzed for kidcest.” He sounded almost as bitter as she felt as he actually got above normal speaking volume.

Kanaya, who had been standing in the room with them, mostly forgotten, spoke up. “What Are You People Even Talking About?”

Rose winked at her, smiling slightly at the befuddled troll girl.

“Don’t you wink at her.” Dave stood in front of Kanaya, arms crossed as if to protect her from Rose’s passive-aggressive winks. “Kanaya, here’s a protip: that wink meant _jack dick._ She’s just being weird.” She could feel him glaring at her accusatorily through his glasses.

They both made to leave, but Karkat entered the room dramatically, yelling at Dave about Terezi as though he was going to challenge him. Instead, to all their surprise, he said he was alright with it, and presented a large tome, which Rose thought at first from the conversation was a book on the study of troll romance, but then she caught sight of the cover.

She snickered under her breath. That book looked horrible. Really horrible, and she had the sudden urge to read it cover to cover. She snatched up the book from Karkat before he noticed.

 Karkat began drawing in _her_ notebook and the two knights got into a fight, which ended with Dave knotting up Karkat in his cape and flipping him over the table.

\---

That night, she laid in her surprisingly plush alchemized contraption of a bed, knitted blanket pulled up over her, and stared blankly at her sheets.

Her stomach gnawed at itself, and right now inside-out cannibalism didn’t seem like such a poor idea. She wondered if it would be considered just or heroic.

Probably just pathetic.

Pathetic was the epitome of how she felt about herself right now. Her conversation from that afternoon had left her feeling confused and drained. What he'd said had stung, but the way he said it left this tiny absurd hope that he was denying it in order to not feel bad about the 'I' word.

She pulled out the troll book. She’d been working on her Alternian, and this would be a good way to learn.

But simply looking at the cover, she was reminded of Dave and Terezi as a possible item, and Karkat’s jealousy, and apparently trolls had love _squares_ instead of triangles. She would never openly admit to being the component that made the situation fit them into troll culture.  She frowned at the troll book, and threw it onto the ground, and went back to hiding under the sheets.

Dave had seemed angry when she’d brought up their past relations. Was he angry at himself for the blunders? That was all. She tried to pick apart what he’d said. _All these fucking momtraps and sistertraps._  Maybe that meant he’d actually thought she was attractive. _Horseplay between smart-ass ten year olds._ Their banter hadn’t meant as much to him?

She sighed. And why did it matter so much? Why couldn’t she just be _over it_? She wanted so desperately to like Kanaya more, to be brave enough to ask the lovely troll girl out and forget about the near-albino knight. But it was difficult when he was right there and her mind played tricks on her. So often, she imagined she saw him smiling or glancing at her, although all evidence pointed to the contrary.

This, of all things bothering her, was inexplicably driving her mad.

\---

Over the next few months, psychoanalysis became a coping mechanism. She had to, when he treated her as though she were contaminated. He would shy away, and she would ruthlessly pick apart his words for phallic imagery and ways of saying he wanted to fuck her mother, or, if she was feeling particularly malignant, his bro.

She felt the ectobiolgical elephant in the room staring at her whenever she quietly noted him in her periphery. At the beginning of their adventure, they had been the same height, but he had sprouted up like a weed, thin and gangly as the rest of his body attempted to acclimate. Gamzee and Kanaya also shot up, Karkat grew, although not to the same degree, and the seers remained the shortest of the meteor’s residents.

Other changes were being wrought within them and as the only human girl, Rose felt extremely uncomfortable. She was fortunate she was well-read and had begun before the advent of SBURB, but she had to alchemize her necessities when she thought nobody was around and it was incredibly awkward.  Paranoia followed her around that someone might notice. During these times, she missed Jade the most. Although, she imagined Jade had it easier, with her grandmother, and a proper house’s supply. Part of her wondered if, after the merging of her dreamself with Bec, then her regular self with the sprite, if Jade went in heat like a dog instead. It didn't seem to be a very polite thing to wonder about, so Rose decided to think about something else.

Rose was used to being bony, a pale wisp of a girl, and it was awkward to find her hips widening, although nothing else grew very much. At first she thought she was getting fat, and once again, she was afraid that someone would comment on it, but they never did. Her Godtier kept her feeling comfortable, the fabric growing with her, so it wasn’t quite as bad as the trolls, who had to figure out how to alchemize slightly larger versions of their clothes without making them thicker. These creations were later tailored by Kanaya to fit.

Rose also learned that it was custom for the trolls to cut their own hair, a practice she had been committed to since the age of seven, when she had first chopped off her blonde hair to the absolute horror of her mother. Dave’s hair began growing shaggy, and so she began giving him haircuts which he was never content with. He would squirm in the chair at her careful touch and it would often end up looking uneven.

Other than haircuts, they were only ever in the same room together for group activities, namely meals. Dave seemed alright. Rose herself found the mix of hormones and PTSD inside her troubling, but she could deal with it herself. She always dealt with things herself, besides, Dave had Terezi now.

Nobody really understood what was happening between Dave and Terezi. She licked him constantly, face and shoulders, and it was rare that they were found outside each other’s company. Karkat became increasingly upset with this, resulting in stupid boy-fights in which Dave mumbled explanations (abashedly? She couldn’t tell), Karkat yelled, and they half-heartedly attempted to strangle each other, until Kanaya walked over and parted them. Dave would shrug it off, possibly fix his cape. Karkat huffed loudly and left the room.

“You need to stop antagonizing him.” She warned one day, looking up from a chart organizing the things they needed to alchemize in the following month.

“whatevs.” Dave sauntered off onto a transportalizer.

\--

Since the Advent of SBURB, Rose’s mind had not been the playground it once was. They’d all been through a lot. The trolls, she knew, had faced a deadlier session, and Kanaya had had to kill one of her best friends.

But still, the experience of going grimdark lived within her body’s memory. Sometimes, even when awake, she smelled saltwater and felt black fire on her skin. Sometimes she was afraid it would happen again, although she’d been reborn as a goddess of Light, supposedly pure, the weaver of Adreline’s thread. Sometimes, despite herself, she longed for the raw power, the adrenaline and the anger she’d felt. Decisions had been easier and she had never felt as alive as when she’d had all that dark magic overflowing from her fragile body.

Even though they were in the void, the Dark Gods didn’t care to talk to her anymore, almost as though they were embarrassed about the incident. Sometimes she wondered if she ought to seek them out. Power and simplicity seemed like a marvelous idea. A one track mind, and it wasn't as though anyone really understood what she was trying to say in the first place.

She never cared to ask if any of the others had nightmares. She didn’t want to admit to the weakness, to the constant clawing feeling on her insides. She was afraid to sleep when they weren’t near a dream bubble.

He looked tired and worn too, sometimes. She worried about him, despite the fact that they were angry at each other, and the bridges between them had more than crumbled, she wanted to help him. She wanted to make jokes about interpreting his dreams and listen to absurd tales about his brother and she  hadn’t realized how much their relationship, even simply as friends  had meant to her until she’d been totally alienated.

She thought about asking him about it, but he still recoiled when she stepped anywhere near his personal space, and it made her feel sick, and okay, she got it, no more winking.

She spent several 'nights' awake and alone, wanting to go and curl up allongside him. She remembered doing so in Davesprite's timeline. Here they were again, two kids at the end of the world without anyone else, except that _he_ did have someone else. Someone who made him laugh more than she ever did.

She supposed she’d ruined their tenuous sibling relationship by trying to get some validation to her previous feelings. Being frustrated and hormonal and angsty was easier when she could at least get through a halfway decent conversation with him.

She did the best she could to give him some space, he did the best he could to ignore her.

That suited her just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments/feedback would be lovely.  
> This is probably the most depressing and the shortest out of the three chapters. Don't worry, we can only go up from here.  
> I also think it's important to talk about the mechanics/logistics of living on a meteor and I included a lot of that in part 1 as well. I hope the 'puberty sucks' bit wasn't awkward.  
> Year 3 may take longer. It's already about halfway done but it covers a lot of canon events (the Act 6 intermissions that include Rose.) along with some possible actual snogging. ;)


	3. Year 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In their final year, Rose learns what it's like to get drunk, to have her heart broken, and to communicate effectively.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where it derives from canon, folks.  
> I was hoping to post it before another meteor intermission in the comic, but I didn't get it done quickly enough.
> 
> This chapter comes with a side of VrisKan, and Karezi if that's something you're interested in.
> 
> ALSO: Thank you so much to beta readers, and to the-indoor-kite, who taught me how to make the pesterlogs look like pesterlogs.
> 
> Otherwise, enjoy.

Rose blinked. Around her was tendrils of bright blue lights and oh no those black tendrils. She sat on a floating piece of dream-Skiaia.

And there was John, clothed in blue godtier- a hood that was still too long for him, and  glasses that still magnified his eyes in a way that made them dominate his face.

He was staring at her, about to bop Bec Noir on the head. Around all her, the debris of the game floated idly.

Bec Noir was also staring at her, she could almost see the question mark above his head.

This is an interesting dream to fall into, to say the least.

Amused, she wiggled her eyebrows. Jack must’ve thought he’d gotten her while grimdark, but _Lalonde is back, bitch_.

She could feel the tug of the meteor pulling away, and waved to John before she faded out.

\----

            She’d been experimenting with beverages since Terezi’s request. She called it alchemy so she could pretend to feel like a wizard. For some reason, alcohol was very easy to make.

Too easy.

She remembered getting drunk in Davesprite’s timeline. She remembered hating her mother for being drunk so often.

Still, there was so little to do, and it was difficult to resist when it lulled her into dreamless sleep. She always drank alone in this timeline. Dave, when he was around to witness it, disapproved. She told him to fuck off and other things she didn’t remember. She knew she never told him anything important, and it was rare that she became intoxicated enough to black out.

He was always there when she had a hangover in the mornings, however. One such ‘morning,’ he sat at the table, not speaking to her, merely playing a game on Terezi’s husktop. She ignored him as she went into the kitchen, her head pounding as though her brain had plans to rip out of her skull and get to the new session at a faster rate. She filled two mugs with boiling water, and then a tea mix she’d created from the various plants on the meteor.

Dave mumbled something at her over his headphones. She didn’t hear or care to get clarification.

The water turned a golden-green colour, she took the strainers out and sat next to him at the table. She passed a mug to him silently, and began to sip her own tea.

He took the cup, chugging it without looking, and set it down, spluttering-

“What the fuck is this?”

“Tea.” She said apprehensively. “I would think you were capable of discerning whether or not something is too hot to drink.”

“I don’t want your fucking wet leaf juice that looks like piss and tastes like it’s been spiked with your bathtub booze.” She could feel him glaring at her through his shades,  “I asked for _coffee_ , Rose. Coffee, the drink of grown-ass men.”

Rose did her best not to obviously fume. “Maybe if you would bother speaking loud enough for other people to hear you, I might’ve actually understood your request. There also happens to not be a coffee machine in this lab. Would you like me to transverse the meteor to get you a beverage you barely enjoy in the first place and most likely is _genuinely_ spiked with troll blood? If  you’re such a ‘grown ass man’ then why don’t you just do it yourself? I already do almost _everything_ else for you, you little _brat_ , with no signs of appreciation, I might add.”

She kicked her chair in loudly as she stood up, and snatched up the mugs.

Their rough intercom system came to life.

“ATTENTION TROLLS AND HUMANS. WE HAVE A DREAM BUBBLE. IT SEEMS PRETTY CROWDED.” Terezi’s voice blared over the machine. “MAN THE STATIONS. WE’RE GOING TO EXPLORE.”

Rose set the mugs down, and stormed off the meteor without so much as a second glance at Dave. She met the other knight as they disembarked. He looked jittery.

“Hello, Karkat.”

“Hey, Rose.” Rose wondered if he was part deaf, at the volume he spoke. Nobody on this meteor but her seemed to be capable of speaking at a reasonable volume.

“Are you alright?”

“These things just make me nervous.” He admitted.  She supposed if she had as many deceased teammates as him, she would be nervous too. She patted him on the back, not asking for any more explanation, and stepped off the meteor. She saw something resembling the beach of LOLAR, and headed towards it, meeting up with Kanaya.

\---

After talking to Porrim in the dream bubble, Rose decided it was high time to ask Kanaya out. Dave was with Terezi, and besides, Kanaya not only responded to her vague flirtations, she was superior in every way.

That was unfair, but something Rose had to fortify into her head. Besides, Kanaya was lovely outside of any relation to them. She had grown tall, lithe, and she _glowed_. Her incandesce bothered the troll girl, but Rose thought it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. White, glowing skin, and bright yellow eyes, irises developing from grey to jade green. Troll’s hair was coarser, their skin thicker, they were after all, a more warlike species. Kanaya always looked a little disheveled, short hair out of place and lipstick smudged. For reasons Rose didn’t understand, being a bit worn around the edges made Kanaya more attractive. She would’ve said it made her more human, but perhaps it simply made her seem more obtainable.

Kanaya was easy to understand. She didn’t like talking about her problems because she didn’t want to limit them to a pale relationship, she said.

That was fine.

It was more than fine, actually. Her attempts at talking to Dave had been fruitless and she was done sorting out other people’s issues or her own. Her current method was ‘ignore it and maybe it will go away.’

\--

Dave didn’t seem to understand anything she’d said over the tea. She was done, and he was acting almost clingy as she worked on her alchemy. He asked her to listen to his raps and make him apple juice and somehow her mother was brought up in conversation. He confessed to feeling outdated and not alright. If she’d been in a better mood, she would’ve tried to work through his feelings with gentle concern, but she snapped back instead.

It was horrible. She did her best to ignore him.

He had a rap-off with Meenah, which was actually sort of amusing. It seemed to satiate his need for attention.

He still hadn’t apologized, or even realized that he’d done something that upset her.

What did she expect?

\--

While trying to figure out what she wanted to do with Kanaya for a date, she realized she’d never actually _been_ on a date before. She was going to spoil everything. Anxiousness built up inside her. She played with alchemy to distract herself, then slumped into her room.

She’d discovered a few months ago that she could shift godtier clothes in design, so long as she didn’t try to change the colours. There weren’t any mirrors in her room, so she snuck into one of the bathrooms and messed around, settling on a gold and orange dress that fell just above her knees.

She put on the jewelry Dave had gotten for her 14th birthday as well, and felt almost confident for a moment, about how she looked and possible romantic interactions with Kanaya. She checked the time on one of the lab’s many computers.

It was early.

She went back to the lab with her alchemy, and found Dave at his copy Terezi’s husktop once again.

She couldn’t work with him around, so she merely sat next to him, not talking, and drank, slurping obnoxiously out of her mug.

\--

She had just experienced her first kiss in which she was an active participant instead of a corpse. The moment had been perfect. They’d been talking about quadrants-- she’d been talking about quadrants, she supposed, blathering on in a mangled attempt at sounding alluring. Her hands had gotten to the places they’d wanted to be, and Kanaya was merely inches from her, radiating a soft off-white light. Her speckled eyes, the jade brighter than human possibility (not including Jade herself, who as she knew from visions, had impossibly green eyes almost like the colour she typed with).

Kanaya was tall and sharp-angled and perfect. Her black lips (they now shared the same lipstick) were parted, and Rose barely registered the problem her fangs might pose should she try proper kissing- she was drunk, enamored, and feeling her homemade liquid courage, she went for it.

She should’ve known not to kiss next to one of the meteor’s impossibly long flights of stairs.

She really should’ve know better.

She slipped, the remaining blue heel falling out from underneath her, and slid on her back all the way down. She was still smiling from the kiss as she half-bounced half slid, the stairs repeatedly assaulting the nerves along her back.

She curled up into a trembling ball at the bottom, shaking. Everything around her seemed to be moving, and her back finally seemed to be registering the full extent of the pain she felt.

She could vaguely hear Kanaya run down the steps after her; she did notice a blurred pair of feet in front of her.

It was then that Rose threw up, projecting mostly liquid sick as she laid on her side, and her mind was so faraway that she hardly registered that she had thrown up on the elegant pair of feet in front of her, or who they obviously belonged to.

She fell unconscious. A proper, black unconscious that didn’t link her to a dreamself.

“Yo. Lalonde. You really messed yourself up.”

His drawl was clear, but his red pants still seemed fuzzy. “Don’t judge me you self-righteous ass.” Is what she wanted to say but it came out remarkably more slurred.  
            “Dave Could You Just Help Me Get Her To Her Room Or Whatever Else Is Appropriate For This Human Condition?”

Rose’s mouth tasted of bile, but she thankfully hadn’t choked on any of it.

“Yeah, Kanaya. I got this covered. Shouldn’t have recommended you guys went through with this in the first place. I didn’t think she was this drunk.”

“I can _heeear_ yooou.”

“Thank fucking god. Maybe you’ll learn something about getting drunk off your ass before taking naïve, well-intentioned troll girls on dates.”

“Shuddup ure talking so _loud._ ”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” He sounded almost smug as he chuckled.

“Fuck you.”

“Well, sis, looks like you’ve fallen off the wagon. And down the stairs.” He knelt down besides her, helping her sit up.  “Can’t say I didn’t warn you, but I’m gonna help you get back on it now. Should’ve realized you had a fucking problem instead of whinging about myself all the time.”

Her limbs were tired. He arranged her arms over his shoulders, and lifted her knees to wrap around his waist in awkward motions. She halfheartedly protested as he lifted her up with a grunt.

“I don’t know if you’ll remember this at all, but I’m sorry for being a self-centered douchebag, and yeah I’m thankful for you trying to help me out and make this 3 year meteor thing a bit less of the biggest headache any of us will ever experience.”

Rose was silent for a few moments, slumped against him, and she could still remember the last time they’d been this close. Their desperate hug before the Green Sun killed them.

Kanaya spoke up. “Dave Is There Anything I Can Do?”

“Yeah, uh, how about you get her shoes I think they’re at the top of the stairs. I’ll tuck her in or whatever.”

 “Are You Sure?”

“Yeah, I can float so it’ll be faster than you stumbling with her.”

“Thank You Very Much, Dave.”

“I dun appreceatee the two a u talking bouut me like that.” She mumbled into his shoulder.  

“Yeah, yeah. Go to bed, Kanaya. She’s gonna be hungover as hell in the morning.” He lifted off the ground, and floated back towards the block of halls that was her room.

They were silent for the most part. Rose tried not to think about every part of her being in pain. She also tried not to think about the places Dave’s hands were and in hindsight this dress was too short but things were awkward enough and she didn’t have the focus to change back into her regular godtier.

Eventually, Dave spoke up.

“I’m really sorry I’m a shit brother, Rose.”

“Din’t want you as a brother.” She confessed into his shoulder. She wasn’t even sure if he heard her, until his posture stiffened. He didn’t say anything about her remark.

A few minutes later, they made it across the meteor to her room. He pushed open the door, “I forgot you were as much as a slob as I am.” He chuckled, stepping around the piles of books scattered around the floor, discarded knitting projects.

“’m not.”

“Rose, this place is a fucking mess. It’s like the books are at a social gathering but they’re afraid to  actually go up and talk to each other because they’re painfully awkward and they’re just lying there with their pages open desperate for sempai to notice them. ”

“Not ur strongest metalfore.”

“Metal-fore, huh? I’m the most articulate person in the room right now. Let me have this.” He set her down carefully on her bed, and tucked her in, in the most patronizing and passive-aggressive way possible.

“Nighty-night, Rosie.”

“Don’t call me that, prick.”

“You’re welcome.” He closed the door behind himself as he left.

\-----

Gamzee was a difficult person to catch, and so Rose’s method of ausptisticing became hanging out around Terezi almost as much as Dave had the first year. They coloured walls, or Terezi indulged Rose with letting her read to the troll girl. Rose would indulge Terezi with a court RP every once and awhile, in which Rose would often play the judge or the opposition. Defendants didn’t exist in Alternia, but Terezi found the challenge interesting.

The more Rose hung out with Terezi, the more she liked the troll girl. They had a lot in common, after all, they did have the same Class in SBURB/SGRUB.

These antics also increasingly included the Mayor, the mostly silent carpace man. He liked drawing little cities, and while he could only speak in clicking sounds, wrote messages to them on all-caps on a handheld computer. He told them about the Post Mistress who’d saved him, and the firefly he’d lost. It could be generally agreed that everyone’s favourite person on the meteor was the mayor.

Dave didn’t seem particularly perturbed by her taking his place in his trio. He surprisingly became closer to Karkat. The two of them got along fairly well, and their roughhousing eventually settled into bickering and laughing. Kanaya, also did not seem to mind, respecting Rose for doing her best at auspisticizing. She increasingly spent time with the two knights, reading slam poetry and romantic novels to them. She had a lovely reading voice.

However, this did have the result of Rose not actually spending a great deal of time with her girlfriend.

They both seemed alright with it. For once, there was harmony on the meteor. Keeping Terezi away from Gamzee was all that Rose really had to do to auspisticize.

\--

Dream bubbles become more common as they get closer to the new session, concentrated around the Inciphisphere in a loose radius.

They met up with the Serkets often. The two girls had individual plans to take down Lord English.

The first time the group crossed paths with Aranea on reoccurance, but upon Terezi’s insistence, they’d met Vriska as well. She met with the group in the next dream bubble. Kanaya punched her in the face, hugged her and then Terezi took her turn. The two girls left alone and spent a few hours together. Rose had spent enough time with Terezi to know the basic outline of the dramatic events that had surrounded the sisters.

Vriska refused to acknowledge Rose’s existence, for reasons Rose didn’t exactly understand, but Rose got along well with the other Serket.

It was fun to let loose, swim around and splash. The group often had their most fun in the dream bubbles, playing around in the memory of Terezi’s forest, or Dave trying to replicate the city for the Trolls to marvel at human society, or in Karkat’s case, deride it at every possible chance.

It was mid-august, Dave told her. In tribute to this, they imagined the dream bubble as close to LOLAR as they could, and everyone took a swim, although Karkat complained incessantly of the brightness.

That day, Gamzee and Karkat had donned shades like Dave’s in order to withstand the brightness of the dream LOLAR, although there was no sun, they were still paranoid. Kanaya didn’t. She said she preferred to embrace the light. Rose smiled at that. Gamzee then suggested this as well, but Karkat forced him to keep them on.

They played a few water games. Terezi and the mayor made a sand castle, which the whole group was soon occupied by.

It was then that they saw a figure in orange approach. Terezi grinned and waved. Vriska updated them on the situation with the Ghost army and treasure hunting.

Rose was focusing on auspisticizing. Keeping an eye on Gamzee, who would occasionally show some sign of malevolence towards Terezi, such as dumping a bucket of sand over her head, which were returned with snide comments from the Tealblood.

Rose didn’t notice when Kanaya slipped away with their visitor.

\--

When they returned, Rose noticed a strange flashing in the hall. She recognized it as Kanaya’s glow, and went to greet her, when she heard voices. She stayed around the corner, taking a moment to listen to who was with her.

“FussyFangs, I just wanted to say, since I haven’t exaaaaaaactly gotten the time to talk to you alone, I’m really sorry.” There was an exaggerated sigh, “I was a shitty moirail and a shitty friend. I regret a lot of stuff from back then, before and during Sgrub. You don’t have to forgive me, but I’ve gotta tell you, I feel really bad about the way I tr _eat_ ed you.” The unmistakable dragging vowels and stressed ‘eight’ sounds of Vriska Serket echoed down the hall.

“Do Not Blame Yourself  Entirely. I Also Failed As a Moriail.”

“’Nah, FussyFangs, you did the best you could with really shitty material.”

“You Do Not Understand. I Had…” There was another pause, “Ulterior Motives.”

Rose did not want to be the sort of person who eavesdropped. Unfortunately, that seemed to be who she was.

“Ulterior motives?” Vriska snorted. “I really doubt someone like you could manage to have ulterior motives. You’re fairly straightforward. In a good way, I mean. No machin _ati_ ons going on in Maryam Land.”

“I Feel As Though I Owe This To Myself To Say.” There was a long pause. Rose felt as though she really should not have been spying.  “I Was Deeply Flushed For You Before The Advent of The Game, And Now That You Have Grown Into The Person I Always Saw In You I Am Extraordinarily Proud Of You As A Friend And Former Moirail.”

Rose froze.

She really should not have been eavesdropping.

She waited for what felt like an eternity for Vriska to reply. Whatever measurement of time it actually might’ve been, she didn’t know.

“Kanaya, I had no idea. You should’ve said something. I would’ve reciproc _ate_ d.” Vriska laughed nervously. “I mean, you’re a badass and really clever and caring I just never thought…” Vriska laughed again.

Rose found herself unable to move from her vantage point.

“Infaaaaaaaact I would reciprocate now, only I’m kind of pretty dead and probably still not anything resembling good for you.”

There was another long pause.

“I Am Also Pretty Dead.”

“You’re still living, Kanaya. Growing. You’re taller than me now.”

“Vriska, I-”

“Damnit, Fussyfangs.”

There was another pause. Rose was quite sure they had begun kissing, but was afraid to look.

\--

Confronting Kanaya was too much to bear. Rose passive-aggressively ignored her and stopped planning dates.

She was still polite to Kanaya at public meetings, still met her eyes and smiled and went through the actions of conversation.

Rose was well-practiced.

She was upset, certainly, although she refused to show it on principle. She had liked their attempts at dates and she had liked how simple things had been with Kanaya. They had gotten along easily, and Rose liked the way Kanaya made her feel, as though she was someone to be valued and appreciated. She still thought Kanaya was gorgeous, and clever and brave. Kanaya was exactly the same and it was difficult, almost as difficult as it had been to stop liking Dave after she’d figured out the mechanics of the game.

Feelings were frustrating and illogical. They didn’t just switch off when they were no longer relevant and perhaps that hurt the most.

Still, she couldn’t bring herself to be all that upset with Kanaya. Vriska had obviously met a lot to her. She’d had the chance to tell the person she loved how much she cared, and that person had reciprocated.

Rose could not shake the mention of pre-game feelings out of her head.

She was almost jealous of Kanaya really, and although it hurt that, as Rose had predicted, she had been settled for, at least Kanaya had the guts to be open.

Eventually, Rose and Kanaya came to the conclusion that they didn’t feel emotionally mature for a relationship at that moment, and decided to put the relationship ‘on pause.’

Rose never mentioned that she’d witnessed Kanaya’s confession.

Vriska appeared in nearly every dream bubble they passed.

\---

Rose had made breakfast for all of them: the troll version of omelets. It was greeted with the usual passitivity. Her cooking was the standard for all of them now, and there was nothing to remark about the desperation with which she tried to add taste to these dishes.

Dave was elbowed into the room by Karkat.  He sat next to Rose, and something about the way he greeted his too-yellow omelet was unnerving.  Karkat seemed to be attempting to communicate with his fellow knight through an elaborate sign language that he wasn’t hiding very well.

The rest of them ate in silence. Terezi, always uncomfortable with too much void, started small talk with Kanaya, asking her about the altered levels of slime they’d been using her in their recooperacoons.

Karkat then almost jumped. From the tiny smirk on Dave’s face, Rose figured he must’ve kicked the mutantblood under the table.

Dave wolfed down his food with his usual vigor, which is to say, between the two times Rose glanced at his plate, it was as though the omelet had absconded. He coughed awkwardly, gaining a stern look from Karkat.

“Hey Rose…”

“Yes?”

“Did you do something with your hair?”

She had cut it the previous ‘evening,’ and had been frustrated when she’d cut her bangs higher than she liked them. She didn’t know why Dave was suddenly paying attention to her hair, but the only logical conclusion was that it looked absolutely terrible.

“I trimmed it. Last night.” She gulped down her juice prototype, currently labeled ‘sugary drink.’ It was mild and vaguely citrusy and most of them found it an agreeable alternative to their other options.

“It looks good like that…” his voice cracked and he coughed, “You look good like that.” His voice was so quiet she could hardly hear him, and she was sitting right next to him. Rose was absolutely silent, staring at her empty cup.

By the time she looked up to read whether it was some sort of passive-aggressive jibe or possibly genuine, he’d absconded.

Rose felt a little bit terrified, and went to bed with a different sort of angst.

\----

The seers began to notice a difference in their usual time spent together: an influx of knights. The two boys never came together, but one of them would awkwardly enter the room and try to engage in whatever activity they were participating in.

Terezi, as Seer of Mind, had a little bit of an edge that Rose had for the most part forgotten about.

She and rose had been drawing a massive dragon on a wall outside of their usual haunts.

“Rose, Could I ask your opinion on something?”

“Certainly.” Rose frowned as the yellow chalk broke on her fire.

“I’ve noticed Karkat’s been sort of…” She frowned, drawing a misaligned eye on the dragon. “Maybe I’ve been using too many seer powers on him, but I think he’s red for me. Legitmiately red this time. He’s sorted all his other quadrants out and I actually think hanging out with Dave and Kanaya more has helped him. Maybe we’re in a better place this time?”

“Everyone does seem to finally be in some sort of harmony.” Rose offered. “However, you do sound doubtful.”

“He’s really sensitive though. And that’s good. That’s what makes him a good leader. But it’s difficult to deal with. He tries to make things idealized and perfect and then he tries to act cool and it’s _frustrating.”_  Terezi sighed.

“I believe Karkat is currently under the impression that you and Dave are in a flushed quadrant.” Rose worded the statement carefully, as though she was trying to speak with Karkat’s interests instead of her own. As if.

Terezi laughed loudly, her cackling echoing through the hall.

“Okay- maybe we messed around a little.” She admitted, still laughing, “Mostly because he was ‘curious,’ about things.”

Rose felt her cheeks flush with sympathized embarrassment among other things.

“At least he’s calmer though…”

Rose nodded.

“I just don’t know if it would be a good idea to be with Karkat again.”

Rose had realized the one reason Gamzee and Terezi had agreed to her interference was their shared love of their leader. “Maybe after we diffuse your blackrom situation.”

“Good idea.”

\-----

The longer time distanced her and the events of April 2009, the better she felt. There were occasions when the sparks of the meteor’s travel sounded like the sea and left her with a feeling of inexplicable terror. There were occasions when she felt a scratch on a shoulder which her mind changed to an oozing tentacle, and she would scratch it raw until the feeling went away. But these incidents were few and far apart.

She drank sometimes, although never as much as she had before her date with Kanaya. Just when she was feeling frightened and alone.

She could deal with it herself. Who’s falling apart on this meteor? Not Rose Lalonde. Not by a long shot.

She was a goddess of light now, and it was silly to be afraid of the dark.

\-----

It was a movie night. Karkat was showing some romance movie or another that Rose had decided not to pay attention to. She was knitting a pair of socks for Terezi, whose shoes had been stolen by Gamzee in some show of black affection.

There was a crunching sound besides her, much louder than the soft tapping of her needles.

“This whole movie is bs.”

Rose looked up, and furrowed her eyebrows. Dave had sat next to her on the couch, and had a large bowl of popcorn. They’d figured out popcorn midway through year 2, and it currently consisted of 50% of his diet.

Rose glanced up at the film.

“I’m not a big fan of the ‘sexy nerd girl thing,’ take off her glasses and let her hair down and- _oh she was beautiful all along._ Even if it wasn’t overdone, It would still bother me.”

“I take that as an insult, Lalonde. I am that girl. Just you wait till I let down these luscious locks. You’ll be swooning.”

Rose was flabbergasted- he’d called her Lalonde and flirted with her in the same sentence. “Alas, but you never take off your glasses.”

“Pretty sure there’s a romcom rule for that. I haven’t been paying attention enough- just look at that shot it’s so shitty that dude wearing a scarf wasn’t in the last one they’re not even being inconsistent ironically.”

He rambled at her without pause about the film, his voice quiet enough for Karkat to not kick them out and it felt good. They hadn’t spoken like this in years and she was content to listen to his wandering thoughts about film and how he’d improve it. Occasionally, she offered up a comment with sufficient snark to make him smile that perfect half-smirk.

She went to bed feeling better than she had in a long time.

\-----

“OMG OH MY G- guys. Guys. Jade’s on pesterchum how is this possible.  ” He pulled off his bulky headphones and stood, turning around the room, “Where the fuck is everyone this is a goddamn miracle I’m gonna join the shitty clown’s religion.”

“She has a signal?” Rose looked up from her journal in surprise from her sunken position within a pile of books.

“Rose?  Rose, get out of that pile. You are not a troll, you have no need for piles, you cannot become one and make buckets with Kanaya please I don’t wanna be the only human on this meteor. Don’t become a troll, Rose. Like- you wouldn’t look good as a troll at all imagine you with grey skin.”

She remembered this Dave had never seen her go grimdark. “You got contact from Jade.” She closed her journal.

“Jade’s pestering me right now, ‘sis. Do you want to miss out on this momentous occasion like the rest of the crew or are you gonna talk to your best friend?”

“Have you said anything to her? She might think we’re not here.” She stood, and crossed the room to the table on which Terezi’s husktop rested.

“Geez okay I got it.” His fingers flew to the keyboard where he typed a simple ‘hey.’

“That’s really all you have to say to a friend you haven’t seen in three years?”

“I don’t fucking know what to say I mean like what do you say.”

“You could at least add a smiling emoticon or some form of punctuation.”

“Jade’s already added twenty I think we’ve got that covered.”

She rolled her eyes.

“What don’t look at me like that I don’t need your judgment you’re not my mom.”

_If I were, you’d actually be attracted to me, dickwad._

Rose leaned over Dave’s shoulder in order to see the pesterlog.

\--gardenGnostic— [GG] began pestering – turntechgodhead – [TG]--

TG: hey

GG: :D :D :D :D :DDD:DDDDD

GG: it worked!!!!

GG: oh god i can’t believe it worked! :) :)

TG: rose is here too btw

TG: trolls are probably all in the vents or something

TGTG: got weird sleeping habits this time of year

GG: wow!! Im going to call john and davesprite!!!

TG: We’re glad to see you’re doing well, Jade.

“Hey rose don’t contaminate my sexy-candy-red text with your capitalization what if she thinks I said that.” He had obviously still been spending too much time with a certain teal-blooded troll.

“It was far too amiable to be you, don’t worry.”

“Hey, I’m a plenty friendly dude. Fuckin’ magnanimous. I’m a benevolent god.”

GG: hello rose!!! :DD

“You see?” She put her hands on her hips. “It is virtually impossible to confuse us.”

GG: just four more months till we meet in person!!

GG: im really excited!

GG: i suppose you can tell with all these exclamation marks but just seeing your text again is really nice!! :D

GG: it’s back like the old days

TG: id say its just about the opposite of old times but whatever floats your boat Harley

GG: my space powers float the boat

GG: B)

TG: oh yeah

TG: i nearly forgot you guys were literally in a boat

TG: aw fuck i made pun

GG: john’s here!

TG: omg put him on

GG: just a sec!

GG: this is not john this is jade.

GG: i am jade Harley and i have dog ears and have really long annoying anime marathons

GG: also I shrink people and put them on planets when they don’t deserve it

GG: even if it is a cool planet like LOLAR

GG: i have also been through everyones houses and stole all their stuff!!

GG: but it’s for me, davesprite and john so we made good use of it I guess.

GG: I would just like to mention how great of a person my brother has grown up to be.

Dave grinned so widely it seemed to split his face in half. It was adorable. From a completely objective standpoint, of course.

GG: as jade, you know from girl to girl and stuff.

GG: how single is rose?

Dave frowned slightly.

TG: well jade youll be glad to know shes a lesbian now

“I’m not a lesbian. I happen to have no gender-based interests.” Rose rolled her eyes.

“Pfft please. When have you ever been attracted to a dude?”

Rose glared at him, jaw clenched.

“Don’t tell me you were legit attracted to Zazzerpan the Learned and his flowy beard and saggy dick omg.” He chuckled to himself, not losing his sloppy grin that felt at that moment like a stab to the abdomen because _of course_ her sexuality was a humorous topic for him.

She sighed, taking a long, deep breath, and spoke once more, “Dave, your best friend has finally contacted you under the guise of his sister. Wouldn’t your attentions be better placed on breaking his charade kindly?”

“I’m gonna tell Kanaya you like droopy wizard-dicks.” He said smugly, more to himself than her, and returned his focus to the pesterlog.

GG: :OO

GG: good for you rose! That makes a lot of sense!!

GG: let me guess it’s the other space player right???

TG: hey put john back

GG: you weren’t supposed to know that was me before.

GG: :P

GG: I guess my pranksters gambit has lost its touch.

GG: don’t tell nanna.

TG: There is no need for concern, we are currently incapable of doing so.

“Rose stop it you’re ruining this for me.” He turned to glare at her as she slid her hands over the keyboard.

GG: hey rose!

GG: thanks for helping me out when I was strifing with jack awhile ago.

GG: that was super cool.

TG: It was my pleasure.

“Rooose shut up I was typing it’s my chumhandle.”

“You invited me to talk to our friends.” She retorted, trying not to sound too irritated.

“Yeah, but, can’t we open up a memo or something you leaning over me and typing is crazy annoying.  It’s repressive and you’re all up in my space like a goddamn smuppet ass. Don’t you still have your headband laptop? Use that.”

“I died wearing it while Grimdark, asshole.”

His lip twitched into what could possibly be considered a frown. He was actually silent for a moment, but when he spoke he mumbled a cliché she had long since grown tired of. “Don’t be hating.”

“I’ll stop ‘hating’.” She punctuated the word with actual airquotes- not her proudest moment, “When we actually manage to have a conversation in which you don’t act like a selfish brat.”

She could feel him glaring from behind his shades. “Okay, I’ll take that but you totally turn on your bitch mode whenever we talk and a guy can only take so much repeated psychoanalysis before he flips a gasket.”

“I’m sorry for trying to understand you then! It’s extraordinarily rare that you attempt to talk about your feelings.”

“Well last time you shut me down ‘cause you were too busy trying to make booze so you could ask out your vampire gf.”

“We’ve only been on one date, and you _know_ how that ended.”

“Yeah, I remember having to carry your drunk ass back to your room and giving you hangover cures but I don’t remember being thanked all that well.”

“What did you want? A billion boondollars for not being an asshole? A blowjob?”

GG: guys are you still there? 

GG: jade went to go find davesprite. 

GG: I kind of wanted to ask you guys about something. 

GG: I don’t know exactly how to bring this up but i really hope you won’t be mad at me. 

GG: I guess it’s just because we’ve spent so much time together in the past few years and there’s so few people left in the universe now. 

GG: I always thought I would just be with vriska, but it turns out shes dead and some ghosty dbag wants to get married to her.

GG: I stole the ring by the way. 

GG: but apparently vriska already dated a ghost me and it didn’t work out so gr8? He was killed by this big boss guy.

GG: damn.

GG: Do you guys know about the big boss? 

GG: I didn’t but I guess you guys would because of rose’s whole seer of light thing. 

GG: I really want to say this before jade gets back but I don’t know how.

GG: Seriously are you guys there at all?

They paused from their bickering, to look at the beeping computer in unison. Rose reached for the keyboard first.

TG: We’re here, John. Do continue.

“Fuck you, Rose. My keyboard.  My chumhandle.”

“This is Terezi’s husktop, idiot.”

GG: okay so say I liked jade…

GG: as something other than a sister…

GG: would that just be because I haven’t seen any other girls at all in the past two years or would that make me a creep.

Rose stared at Dave, hoping to glean his reaction.

Dave, for his part, stared, deadpan at the screen.

Rose decided, if John was in the same situation, the least she could do is help him as ambiguously as possible.

TG: You’re not a bad person for liking Jade.

TG: You weren’t raised together, so your brain lacks that ability to withhold attraction.

TG: I believe it’s called the Westermark Affect.

TG: And it’s something we all happen to be lacking.

TG: You shouldn’t have to feel guilty for having emotions or desires.

TG: It’s complete bullshit. We’re the last people in the universe.

TG: Besides, when you look at ectobiology, it turns out that we are complete opposite halves, rearrangements of them for the purpose of the game.

TG: It just so happens that our ‘parents’ were both blonde and pale, and both your ‘parents’ had overbites and glasses.

She paused, feeling if she was going too far.  Dave was watching her fumble over the keyboard and sort out typos, watching her words unravel silently.

TG: With all the bullshit we’ve been through, you both deserve to be happy.

TG: You know sklu ueiflhdjfa goddamnit if the two of you dorks can manage to make each other happy just fucking go for it

“Is that really what you think?” She asked quietly after a long pause.

“Yeah well who’s gonna judge them?” His pokerface was stiffer than ever as he mumbled out the words, hesitant. “I’m pretty sure _their_ grandparent-teens aren’t gonna care.”

GG: wow I’ve got to say I did not expect that from you guys!

GG: I feel a lot better about the whole thing.

GG: jades going to see this log, what do I do?

GG: urghhhhhhhh I don’t know why I’m so nervous.

TG: cmon bro youll be fine not like youre trying to ask the eldritch broad out

TG: jades really nice and if she doesnt dig you shell let you down with a cute pun or something

TG: both you guys can be crazy blunt though

TG: i guess thats mostly you

TG: anyways you just gotta go with the flow

Rose stared at the screen, eyes wide.

“Is that so?”

“I don’t see why it’d be your fucking business if it was.”

“I disagree. Strongly.”

GG: wow thank you dave!

The connection cut off. They couldn’t tell if it was Jade or John because of the exclamation point.

Dave sat, silent, still, and as infuriating as ever.

“Dave, I just…” Rose sighed. “It doesn’t even matter anymore, but-” She decided to borrow a phrase from Kanaya, “I have to say this. I owe this to myself. Because it’s been gnawing away at me and I’ve felt horrible about it. And I’m sorry, for inappropriately psychoanalyzing you, but it was certainly better than the alternative, which was admitting I still had feelings for you even though your original advances were only ironic in the first place. I just wasn’t in a good place in my life, with my mother…”

She forced herself to look at him dead on, and continue speaking, to just plow through this stupid confession. Things had augmented enough in her head that she didn’t feel as though she had another option. “I didn’t have many friends and you just made me feel good and I liked who I was when I spoke to you… but that’s stopped now and actually just thinking about how much I like you has made me feel terrible these past few years and it’s miserable, this isn’t very cohesive, I’m sorry for dumping all of this on you, I know it’s not very mature and I’m trying to be the mature one…. Oh god I should go.” The filter between her mind and brain had dissolved as though she were John Egbert but it felt good to get all that off her chest. She turned away, and her face had never felt quite so heated without any booze in her system.

Dave got up surprisingly quickly from his chair to grab her hand. “Whoa Rose, slow down.”

She still couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye, despite the barrier between them that the shades offered. She noticed she was shaking slightly. There was so much adrenaline in her and she was far too ashamed at her outburst to come up with anything else to say.

“I may have been lying when I said things between you and me were 100% horseshit. I mean, they were metaphorical-allegorical Olympics for preteens, first person to find the phallic imagery gets the gold…” He cut himself off, silent for a few moments, and squeezed her hand, “But, um, there were some serious feelings as well. I even came up with a bunch of bullshit dreams for you to psychoanalyze just because I wanted to talk to you more.”

She smiled, biting her lip nervously, taking a glance up at him. He was smiling too.

“I was horribly pretentious back then.”

“You still are. Don’t worry, pretentious looks good on you.” He grinned, wide and boyish and uncontrolled and it felt good for him to be grinning at her like that, honest, as though he wasn’t actually trying to be cool.

It felt so good to be validated. That she wasn’t the only person completely off her rocker and she grinned in return, finally able to stop shaking.

“A little nubby-horned bird may have whispered in my ear and told me you were single.” He corrected his uncontrolled grin into an attempt at sly and sexy and _Dave you obviously do not understand what about you is appealing._

“I didn’t know you talked to birds. Are you part Disney princess, Dave?”

“Aw damn you found me out that’s my big secret. I’ve been keeping all these urges to swoon and sing in for so long, you got no fucking idea how difficult it’s been.”

“I may have some idea.”

He paused, his face becoming more serious.

“I’m sorry, Rose. That things have been shit between us for so long. And for generally being a pain in the ass.”

“I’m sorry too, and you weren’t that much of a pain, not really.” She brushed her thumb against the back of his hand. They were silent for a few moments.

“So was that bird right?”

She nodded, trying to seem casual and put together. There was another stretch of awkward silence.

“Would it be cool if I uh, kissed you? Like, is that a place that this is headed? Are we on the train to makeout city because I feel like that’s where things are going.”

She laughed: she hadn’t expected him to say that in a million years. She never really got tired of all that rambling and mumbling.

“Rose you don’t understand that was a serious question. Serious as the fucking grave. Fuck. Fine. You don’t have to- um, yeah.” He looked away.

She grabbed his hood and pulled his face into hers, their lips met but the rip of his shades jammed into the soft tissue above her eye.  Rose determined that she was destined to be terrible at first kisses. She pulled away, rubbing her eye.

Dave coughed awkwardly. “You okay?”

“Your glasses stabbed my eye.”

“I can take them off.”

“Dave, you don’t have to. I know you have bizarre eye-based insecurities.”

It was his turn to laugh, apparently. “I just wear them for respect to my bro and John. I actually don’t. I mean, my eyes are kinda freaky. But it’s not some bigass insecurity.”

He pulled his glasses off.

“Yeah it’s not a big secret that my eyes are red I’m pretty sure you already had that figured out…”

“They’re lovely.” Rose said simply.

“Hot damn an actual compliment from Rose Lalonde? This really is my day.” His hand dropped hers, then wound around her waist, and he regarded her with something like admiration. She leaned up for another kiss.

This one was executed significantly better, although still sloppily. As he didn’t have vampire teeth, she allowed herself to be more confident kissing back.

He was so warm pressed up against her and she felt all her tension dissipate. She didn’t expect things to be perfect between them from now on (they never were) but she hoped they’d be better.

She tangled her hands in his too-shaggy hair, slipping one under his hood, drinking in the moment that he was here, with her, reciprocating her advances enthusiastically rather than scorning her for a wink.

Rose heard steps down the hall, “Someone’s coming.” She whispered.

“No problem, Rosie.”

He grabbed her by the waist, and floated up lazily, until her back brushed against the ceiling. “Did you just call me Rosie?” She hissed. He grinned slyly at her.

“Guess I’m just feeling daring today.” She scowled at him.

Karkat entered the room, saw terezi’s open husktop, and Dave’s discarded shades on the desk. 

The pair watched silently from above. Karkat put on the shades, and began to mimic the other knight.

“I’M DAVE STRIDER I’M THE COOLEST HUMAN KID TO EVER COOL LOOK AT ME WHOOP DE FUCKING DO. KARKAT I’VE GOT GIRL PROBLEMS WILL YOU HELP ME? I’M TOO BLIND BECAUSE OF THESE DIPSHIT SHADES TO NOTICE THAT ROSE HAS SHOWN RED INTEREST IN ME AND I CAN’T CONTAIN MY DUMB HUMAN BONE-BULGE. MAYBE THAT’S WHY I’VE LEFT MY GLASSES AROUND FOR ANY IDIOT TO PLAY WITH THEM. THANK GOD KARKAT IS MY BEST TROLL BRO AND LOOKING OUT FOR ME.”

Karkat then capatchalogged the glasses.

It took every ounce of Rose’s self control to not break into a fit of giggles.

Dave glared at her.

“You can’t contain your human bone-bulge?” She whispered, wiggling her eyebrows at him.

“You interested in my human bone-bulge for some reason, Lalonde?”

“The topic fascinates me to infinite extents, Strider.”

“You’re in luck, ‘lil lady.”

“You sounded awfully southern just then.”

“Shut up and kiss me, Rosey-Posey.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re going to pay for that one.” The threat didn’t mean anything. She found she didn’t mind the ironic nickname at the moment, and she liked his accent.

Suffice to say, they did not wait for Karkat to leave to continue kissing.

\---

Rose went to sleep in gangly arms against red cloth. Something about his presence was comforting, and as he kissed the top of her head and mumbled goodnight, she felt almost safe.

Her mind went into the soft blackness of the void for awhile.

In her sleep, she dreamed she met her mother. She was younger, as she expected her mother to be in the new session, but she wore her mother’s clothes. The lab suit and the large shoulder pads and Rose had missed her mother so much, she could not contain her glee.

Her mother was talking to a troll she hadn’t met before, who threw dust in their eyes before Rose had the chance to say anything.

Rose woke up, and smiled to herself. They were going to reach the new session soon, and by then, maybe they’d actually be ready.

Things were going to be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading or otherwise scrolling to the end. Feedback would be great.


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